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A new breed of social media websites is leaving young people open to cyber bullying, with anonymous users able to bombard others with sexually explicit messages and demands.

The anonymity provided by the sites has made them a hotbed for sexual pressure, bullying and abuse.

Despite little mainstream media coverage, “question and answer” websites such as ask.fm, qooh.me and formspring.me have exploded in popularity

Adults must impose the necessary checks and balances to keep children safe online, says the children's commissioner for Wales.

"All children and young people don't seem much of a distinction between their online and offline lives,"

Mr Towler told BBC Radio Wales. "It's all just one thing and they get really excited by the opportunities the internet affords and sometimes parents get a little scared about that and worried about what their children are accessing." 'Crossing the road' Continue reading the main story “Start Quote They're all running around with handheld computers these days, they're not just on phones ” End Quote Keith Towler Children's commissioner Mr Towler said he talks to children in lots of different settings and they "still enjoy playing outside as much as they ever did". He said we need to recognise that the internet provides fantastic opportunities for education and learning and its making sure that children access that safely. He said that was a real challenge for parents and carers. "It's a bit like crossing the road, you try to teach your children the best way of crossing the road well. We need to teach our children the best way of using this fantastic resource. "I think too many parents are very very scared of the internet and because they're so scared they will say 'Oh I don't understand it'". Handheld computers The commissioner also praised Hwb, the virtual learning environment, which he said provides protection for children using the web in schools. Mr Towler said: "We've got to get parents and carers to recognise that children do operate in the digital world. They're all running around with handheld computers these days, they're not just on phones. "They can access whatever they want whenever they want and parents need to engage on that. " "We need to remember that children and young people are much more savvy than sometimes we think they are, and they are much more responsible than sometimes adults think they are so its not all doom and gloom. "What we need to do is put the right checks and balances in place and what children always want from parents and carers is to understand what the boundaries are, and that's our job to do that." Sangeet Bhullar, executive director of Wise Kids, added that the digital landscape was "evolving rapidly" and up-to-date data was needed on how children and young people in Wales related to it. More on This Story .related-links-list li { position: relative; } .related-links-list .gvl3-icon { position: absolute; top: 0; left: 0; } Related Stories Web safety lessons urged for infants 05 FEBRUARY 2013, EDUCATION &amp; FAMILY Online chat 'should be monitored' 22 JANUARY 2013, TECHNOLOGY Body to promote digital teaching 22 JUNE 2012, WALES $render("page-see-also","ID"); $render("page-newstracker","ID"); Related Internet links Children's Commissioner for Wales The BBC is not responsible for the content of external Internet sites $render("page-related-items","ID"); Share this pageShare this pageShareFacebookTwitter Email Print In association with $render("advert","advert-sponsor-module","page-bookmark-links"); $render("advert-post-script-load"); $render("advert-post-script-load"); More Wales stories RSS Army base shuts in defence shake-up An Army base in Pembrokeshire is to close with 600 troops transferred to St Athan in the Vale of Glamorgan. Soldiers' conman jailed three years Wales recall Warburton and Jones <!--

The internet has always revolved around social networking, but the explosion of a fresh generation of communal sites such as MySpace, Bebo and Facebook is taking the phenomenon into new and unchartered territory.

One of those applications called iLike - pigging-backing on Facebook's global network - has already attracted more than 6 million members, and is growing by 1 million every few days, making it one of the fastest growing companies of any kind ever

A new generation accustomed to instant networking, and unashamed about living more of their lives online, is bound to change the organisations they work for and maybe the way they are governed, or at least the way their governments communicate with them

Only about 5% of retailers currently have the interest or the ability to market to specific customers based on their location, according to Ingle. Most of what brands are interested in is more generalized information about their customers. But in a rapidly evolving and increasingly mobile marketplace, the brands that arrive late to the location-based targeted advertising game may be left out in the cold.

Your smartphone holds a treasure trove of information about you, and cell phone companies are looking for ways to turn that into profit.

"An interesting transformation is happening in wireless, in which consumers are no longer customers -- they're the product," said Dan Hays, principal in PricewaterhouseCooper's communications and technology practice. "The trick is for operators to find out how to make money without violating their relationships and trust with their users."

y 2016, the internet is forecast to grow to 12.4% in the UK, contributing some £225bn to the overall UK economy.

Certainly the past 15 years have seen London, in particular, generate some incredible homegrown successes including ASOS, JustEat, King.com, Mimecast, Moshi, Net-a-Porter, Playfish and Skype. It is the US giants Apple, Amazon, eBay, Google and Facebook, which currently generate more than £15bn of annual UK revenues combined.

Understanding the internet's role in our economy and society is so fundamental now that we cannot afford to operate blindly. If we are in a global economic war for talent, resources and income, perhaps we need to establish the internet age-equivalent of Winston Churchill's 1941 creation of the Central Statistical Office (the precursor to the Office for National Statistics), and build a transparent central statistics body for relevant economic internet related data.Government can and does have an enormous impact on the economy.

February 8, 2013 12:30 pm Amazon unpacked By Sarah O’Connor The online giant is creating thousands of UK jobs, so why are some employees less than happy?

Between a sooty power station and a brown canal on the edge of a small English town, there is a building that seems as if it should be somewhere else. An enormous long blue box, it looks like a smear of summer sky on the damp industrial landscape. Inside, hundreds of people in orange vests are pushing trolleys around a space the size of nine football pitches, glancing down at the screens of their handheld satnav computers for directions on where to walk next and what to pick up when they get there. They do not dawdle – the devices in their hands are also measuring their productivity in real time. They might each walk between seven and 15 miles today. It is almost Christmas and the people working in this building, together with those in seven others like it across the country, are dispatching a truck filled with parcels every three minutes or so. Before they can go home at the end of their eight-hour shift, or go to the canteen for their 30-minute break, they must walk through a set of airport-style security scanners to prove they are not stealing anything. They also walk past a life-sized cardboard image of a cheery blonde woman in an orange vest. “This is the best job I have ever had!” says a speech bubble near her head.

If you could slice the world in half right here, you could read the history of this town called Rugeley in the layers. Below the ground are the shafts and tunnels of the coal mine that fed the power station and was once the local economy’s beating heart. Above the ground are the trolleys and computers of Amazon, the global online retailer that has taken its place. As online shopping explodes in Britain, helping to push traditional retailers such as HMV out of business, more and more jobs are moving from high-street shops into warehouses like this one. Under pressure from politicians and the public over its tax arrangements, Amazon has tried to stress how many jobs it is creating across the country at a time of economic malaise. The undisputed behemoth of the online retail world has invested more than £1bn in its UK operations and announced last year that it would open another three warehouses over the next two years and create 2,000 more permanent jobs. Amazon even had a quote from David Cameron, the prime minister, in its September press release. “This is great news, not only for those individuals who will find work, but for the UK economy,” he said.

Apple is the most creative, innovative and envied technology company of our time,

spring of 2000,

Cisco and its ilk as the internet transformed the economy.

Since there's no evidence these investors are interested in anything but profit, it's up to progressive organizations to become players in the global m

edia game.

generate huge revenues

Why has the Internet changed so little?

The Internet Age was meant to change everything - internationalism, commerce, journalism, government - all would be transformed, made equal and boundless by the click. It's time to admit this has simply failed to happen, and what is more interesting than the bad forecasting is the reason that they seemed so tempting in the first place.

More generally, the global medium of the internet would shrink the universe, promote dialogue between nations, and foster global understanding. In brief, the internet would be an unstoppable force: like the invention of print and gunpowder, it would change society permanently and irrevocably.

: A gene that seems to be (very modestly) correlated with internet addiction also plays a role in nicotine addiction.

A gene that seems to be (very modestly) correlated with internet addiction also plays a role in nicotine addiction.

internet addiction is not a figment of our imagination

his description of modern slaves cum “hostages” is particularly applicable to our relationship to the internet.

Moreover, much of non-work related internet use is actually work insofar as it generates wealth for others.

as well as networking sites like Facebook and LinkedIn, that we are held hostage.

I would like my browsing and Google searches to be private. I don't want targeted advertising and I don't want to feel that anonymous companies are harvesting my clicks to learn all about me.

When the web was young, and a lot less shiny, web pages were fixed (static) and – barring browser quirks – everybody saw much the same thing. Today, much of the web is dynamic, which means that what you see has been adapted or possibly constructed on the fly just for you.

From your point of view, the advantage is that the websites you visit will be personalised to suit your needs and tastes. From the website's point of view, the advantage is that it can also personalise its prices and advertising to try to suit your needs and tastes, and increase your propensity to click and buy.

A generation of children risks growing up with obsessive personalities, poor self-control, short attention spans and little empathy because of an addiction to social networking websites such as Twitter, a leading neuroscientist has warned

5 Data Points for Content Marketing

Paid online advertising is not only less efficient, it’s expensive too.

Based on point 2 you could have instead gotten 33 sales leads for a cost of $133 had you been doing content marketing.